Pennsylvania's Geissele Automatics last week picked up a fat contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command. 

The 10-year award has a maximum ceiling of $29,263,029 for what SOCOM describes as "a new sniper support weapon, designated marksman, rifle taking advantage of advances in ammunition and weapons technology to improve the intermediate range sniper rifle lethality, reliability and performance when suppressed during 50-1,500-meter engagements." 

The background on the award is part of the MRGG-S, or Mid-Range Gas Gun (Sniper) program, which would be used primarily by the Naval Special Warfare community. The fortune cookie version of the MRGG-S requirements was a full-time suppressed 6.5 Creedmoor rifle with a 20-inch barrel, MOA accuracy, fully adjustable stock, and strict weight/dimensional requirements. Other requirements included a low-backpressure suppressor and the ability for the user to quickly swap out the 6.5 CM barrel to one chambered in 7.62 NATO in under five minutes.

First kicked off in 2019, MRGG-S has seen most of the big names in precision military rifles submit variants for consideration, including FN and LMT. At the end of the day, however, it seems Geissele has gotten the nod for the new frogman sniper rifle. 

The company buried the lead on the MRGG-S some 47 minutes into a livestream in late August, saying the gun will be type classified by the military as the Mark 1 Mod 0 rifle. 
 

Dubbed internally at 3.5 Geissele as "Project Joy," Bill Geissele said that the process had taken three and a half years from brainstorming to adoption. 

"When the U.S. Navy did its testing of Joy," said Bill Geissele," they shot over 25,000 rounds through our guns. Three guns got 6,400 through each one – over 19,000 rounds. They were going to stop at 5,000 rounds. They were looking for barrel life. This continued to 6,400 rounds, and at 6,400 the groups were 0.97, 0.76, and 0.49 average on a piece of paper." 
 

Geissele is listing a commercial version of the MRGG, complete with a standard SSA-E two-stage trigger, 20-inch 1:7.5 Twist CRMOV barrel, Magpul PRS Lite stock, and a fully-ambi receiver, all in the company's "Desert Dirt" color.  

The ask is $6,500.